Pick-up mechanisms are used on crop harvesting machines such as hay balers to lift crop material from the ground. These pick-up mechanisms are usually equipped with a windguard for holding down the crop material to prevent it from being blown off the pick-up mechanism and to provide even flow of crop material.
A conventional type of windguard includes a bar extending across the front of the pick-up mechanism with a plurality of tines attached to the bar along its length extending rearwardly over the pick-up mechanism. This type of windguard may be manually adjusted for different sizes of windrows of crop material by positioning the bar and the tines closer to the pick-up mechanism for small windrows or farther away from the pick-up mechanism for large windrows. If the windguard is adjusted for small windrows and a large windrow is encountered, the windguard bar and tines may be too close to the pick-up mechanism to accommodate the large windrow. This could cause plugging of the pick-up mechanism. If the windguard is adjusted for large windrows and a small windrow is encountered, the windguard tines may be too far away from the pick-up mechanism to protect the small windrow. This could result in wind loss of crop material. Furthermore, the number of windguard adjustment positions is limited and is not adequate to handle all windrow sizes.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved windguard that automatically adjusts to varying windrow size.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved windguard having an unlimited number of adjustment positions for different windrow sizes.